Telegram has rolled out a major update featuring a rich text editor, Communities, private bot messages inside groups, and a rebuilt GIF search covering more than 350 million animations.
The new rich text editor allows users to create long-form posts with headings, tables, lists, quotes, code blocks, formulas, photos, and videos placed directly between paragraphs. Messages can contain up to 32,768 characters, bringing article-style publishing directly into Telegram chats and channels. The visual editor is optimized for mobile and desktop, while Cocoon-powered AI tools can generate text, formulas, and tables with a focus on privacy. The editor is currently limited to Telegram Premium subscribers.
Telegram Communities introduce a new way to organize multiple groups, channels, and bots around a single topic. Members can discover and join connected chats without separate invitation links. A community can appear as individual chats or as one expandable item in the chat list.
Community administrators can decide whether connected chats are visible to everyone or hidden from people who are not already members. Communities are collaborative by default, meaning members can add chats. Administrators can restrict this behavior, turning new additions into suggestions that require approval.
Bots inside groups can now send ephemeral messages visible only to a specific user. These private responses can include AI summaries, greetings, errors, confirmations, or menus with buttons, without cluttering the public conversation with messages intended for one person. Bots can send them automatically or after a user selects a command marked with a dedicated icon.
TestingCatalog channelon Telegram too! Telegram has also replaced its GIF search system with an internally managed index containing more than 350 million publicly available GIFs across 36 languages. The index was built using open-source AI models and works without third-party search providers, keeping search queries within Telegram’s infrastructure. The company says the new system also returns results faster than its previous GIF search.
The update pushes Telegram further beyond conventional messaging by combining long-form publishing, community management, private bot responses, and media discovery inside the same platform. Telegram operates cloud-based apps across Android, iOS, desktop, macOS, and the web, allowing chats and content to remain synchronized across devices.